Colleagues are remembering Jim Ellis as a knowledgeable basketball coach who was an even better person. Ellis, an assistant basketball coach for several years at Bishop Guilfoyle High School and more recently at Penn State Altoona, died of cancer earlier this week at UPMC in Shadyside. He was 42. “I never heard a bad word about him, and the kids loved him,’’ said former Bishop Guilfoyle coach Dave Benton. “My first year of coaching at BG I was the assistant freshman coach, and he played on the freshman team. “We later hired him as a varsity assistant when I was the varsity coach,’’ Benton said. “He knew his [basketball], and the kids respected him.’’ Ellis also served on BG coaching staffs with Terry Sullivan and Tom McConnell. For the past three seasons, he was an assistant coach for Alan Seretti and the Penn State Altoona men’s basketball program. “As in any profession, you’re only as good a coach as you are a person, and Jim was a great person,’’ Seretti said.